The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [169]
His earlier contempt for the scribe vanished as he was forced to draw the inevitable conclusion: this war involved sorceries and dark powers. For a moment he felt like a man who steps off a ladder into a hay loft only to feel the floor giving way beneath him as long-rotted boards break at last. With a small smile Dallandra looked away, and the world steadied again under him.
Overhead, thunder rumbled. Gerran yelped like a kicked dog. He could feel his face burning with embarrassment. “My apologies,” he said. “That startled me, for some cursed reason!”
“Me, too,” Cadryc glared in the direction of the citadel, looming above them as darkly as any storm cloud. “I wish the gwerbret would get himself down here.”
Gwerbret Ridvar, with Prince Voran riding beside him, did lead his men down before the rain broke. The army, however, had made a scant three miles from Cengarn when a hard downpour began, soaking everyone before they could even curse the stuff properly. At first it showed every sign of lasting all day and perhaps into the night, but not long after noon a wind sprang up from the west. Like a sheepdog it harried the clouds and pushed them toward the east. The rain turned to a drizzle, then dwindled to nothing. In a clear sky the sun hung low over the western horizon.
“Well, now, that’s a bit of luck!” Cadryc said. “Storms usually last all day around here.”
“So they do,” Gerran said, but he suddenly wondered if it was luck or Dallandra who’d driven the storm away.
The message came back down the line of march that the gwerbret was going to call a halt as soon as he found a decent spot for their encampment. Cheers followed its progress from rider to rider.
“Let’s hope it stays dry tomorrow,” Cadryc said.
“True spoken, Your Grace,” Gerran said. “We can’t have gotten more than twelve miles from Cengarn. It’s the cursed muddy roads—” He broke off when he realized that Cadryc wasn’t listening.
The tieryn was riding with his head tipped back, staring up at the sky. When Gerran followed his lead, he saw something that looked like a bird circling high above them, a black bird of some sort, perhaps, but it was far too big for a raven.
“What in the name of every god is that?” Cadryc pointed. “Looks like the blasted thing is following us.”
Up ahead the Westfolk archers had seen it, too. With a shout they began to free their bows from their leather slings. Calling out in Elvish, Dallandra turned her horse out of line and rode back level with the troop. Whatever she said made the men leave their bows on their backs. The bird dropped down closer in a lazy circle—no bird at all, not with those greenish-black scales glittering from the rain, not with those enormous but unfeathered wings.
“It’s another blasted dragon!” Gerran said. “As if we didn’t have enough trouble on our hands already.”
Cadryc most likely would have agreed, but at that moment the horses got a noseful of the dragon’s vine-garish scent. Even the best-trained warhorses began to buck and rear, neighing in terror, kicking out, until the entire army disintegrated into a mob. The dragon dipped one wing and turned, flapping fast away toward a stretch of open grass not far to the east. As it did so, Gerran could have sworn that it called out “My apologies!” in a deep rumble of a voice, but he had no time to consider the absurdity of such a thought until at last, with the dragon gone off, the horses began to calm themselves.
Dallandra dismounted, then turned her trembling horse over to Calonderiel and ran through wet grass to join the dragon, who had settled in a rough pasture downwind. Arzosah had grown a fair bit since the last time Dallandra had seen her. Not